Driving Offences & Instant Driving Ban

Most driving offences are normally punishable by penalty points and a fine. However, some offences carry a discretionary driving ban whilst the serious offences are punishable by a mandatory disqualification.

In cases where the offence is felt to be so severe that punishment by way of a fine and penalty points is inadequate, the Court can instead impose an instant driving ban.
The decision as to when a ban is appropriate is entirely at the discretion of the Court and will depend upon the offence, past record, mitigation and any other issue that the Court believes to be relevant, for example, the likelihood of a further offence occurring.
The Court is supplied with guidelines indicating when a fine and penalty points is appropriate/inappropriate but the final decision is with the Court and the discretion available can be quite wide ranging.

When the offence is so serious that penalty points would clearly be inadequate, the Court must impose a ban if the Defendant is found guilty.
In such circumstances, the Court's discretion is limited to the duration of the ban.